


A Study In Beauty: Pepper Potts

by GreenSaplingGrace



Series: A Study In Beauty [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AI Tony Stark, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Arc Reactor Angst, As you do when you're cursed, BAMF Pepper Potts, BAMF Tony Stark, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Body Dysmorphia, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 1, Character Study, Domesticity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Friendship, Genius Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Loss of Autonomy, Maria Stark's A+ Parenting, Multiple Pairings, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Obadiah Stane Is His Own Warning, POV Tony Stark, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Iron Man 1, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pro Tony Stark, Romance, Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Can Take Care of Himself, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark as the Beast, Tony Stark is not a doormat, Tony Stark-centric, Tony Whump, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, With Many Many Many People, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23083249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSaplingGrace/pseuds/GreenSaplingGrace
Summary: Pepper Potts arrives at Tony Stark's manor. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but she is everything and nothing like he'd imagined. Infinitely more amazing than he could ever wish.
Relationships: Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & SI Staff
Series: A Study In Beauty [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659004
Comments: 29
Kudos: 55





	1. Nothing Gained, Nothing Lost

**Author's Note:**

> So, I watched Beauty and the Beast recently, right in the midst of rekindling my Tony Stark obsession. I listened to the first five minutes of the movie and was instantly inspired to make a Marvel AU. This will be a series of fics. This first one is from Tony's POV and is a lot more introspective. The following fics will each focus on one of the romances/relationships this fic sort of encompasses.
> 
> Trigger Warnings (for the whole fic-not just this chapter): Body Dysmorphia. Non Consensual Body Modification. Past/Referenced Child Grooming, Abuse, Torture, and what equates to Sexual Abuse as well as Rape (the arc reactor scene), Panic Attacks, Loss of Bodily Autonomy. (more will be added as the fic progresses).

It starts like any good story does. Tony Stark - genius, billionaire, playboy, and all around asshole - is judged by some cryptic old witch and deemed unworthy. She modifies his body without his consent, as is the way of self righteous hags when encountering a stranger whose faults they take upon themselves to fix, and is given his Ultimatum.

According to Tony’s somewhat spotty memory of the event, considering he was only half listening at the time, it goes something like this: “you will be cursed to appear in this beastly form, isolated and ostracized, surrounded only by those within your mansion, until you can a) fall in love, and b) earn love in return”. 

Oh, and also there’s a rose that will bloom and then die. If he hasn’t met the terms of the contract by the deadline - the rose’s wilting - then he will suffer the consequences of violating said contract. The consequences of which are, apparently, that he will be trapped in this form forever.

In other words, it's a load of bull. He didn’t fucking sign anything. He’s never even met this lady, old or otherwise, before in his life. Yet somehow she thinks his business involves her? That his body is her plaything? Yeah, no. He’s been there, done that. Howard Stark, Tiberius Stone, Obadiah Stane, Sunset Bain, and the Ten Rings were already enough for one lifetime, let alone twelve.

But he can’t fix it. So.

Yeah. He’s stuck like this.

For now.

Because he’ll find a way. He always does. He’s Tony fucking Stark. Let it never be said that he’s ever let his opponents get the best of him. Ever let them keep him down. He’ll rise above them, as he’s done so many times before, the stronger and better and braver for it. He’s iron and gold and titanium. Melted down, beaten, reformed, but never broken, never useless. A cool shell forged in the fires of adversity. Indestructible. Unbeatable. 

Invincible.

\---

There are many problems that arise when one suddenly and unexpectedly gets turned into an incorporeal, glowing, blue AI. But the first problem he ends up attempting to tackle, mere minutes into this whole wretched situation, is the rose.

He's got multiple reasons for this course of action. First of all, it’s a _rose_ . Which is already cliche and utterly ridiculous. It is also living, and consequently, dying. A real bummer of a time frame, if he's being honest. Mostly, though, he just hates it. He hates the damn thing with a passion. Absolutely despises it, because it's the rose that got him in this situation in the first place. It's a representation, however small, of each entitled, righteous, self congratulating, obsessive, possessive person who’s tried to carve out every precious piece of him to replace with their own. It's a set of rules somebody else has imposed on him - on his life. _Again_. It's a threat and a warning for what will happen if he steps out of line.

He wouldn’t be Tony Stark if he didn’t take that as a challenge.

Before he can solve the rose problem, however, he needs a body. Or, at least, a body that isn’t blue, glowing lines of code incapable of interacting with the real world.

So he builds a suit.

Well, okay. He works with JARVIS and his hopeless yet well intentioned bots to build a less advanced, low powered version of the suit that consists entirely of two gauntlets.

 _Then_ he builds the suit. It’s a marvel, if he does say so himself. And no, he doesn’t wish someone else were here to hear him say it. To maybe agree or congratulate him. Or say something about the fact that he’s just revolutionized the tech industry in one week, despite having no body to speak of. 

But no, he doesn’t think about that. Because he’s fine. He’s always fine, and the loneliness has never bothered him before (that’s a lie, of course, but Tony’s always been good at lying ~~(especially to himself)~~ ).

So, he finishes the suit, and it's all good. Very cool. Very action hero rises above his enemies. There was probably a bit of a montage in there, maybe some rock music to set the scene. A few funny mishaps to humanize him, let the viewer peak behind the curtain and see past all of the ~~code, monstrosity, issues, code, incompetence, faults, arrogance, worthlessness, lack of body, of goodness, of _worthiness_~~ beastliness, for lack of a better word.

Except there’s no enemy to speak of. Nobody to shoot, or destroy, or defeat anymore. Nobody to overcome. The hag is long gone. Which leaves only one thing. And that is the flower. That _damn_ flower. 

So he does something about that, instead.

The flower seems to operate according to a set of rules entirely separate from the laws of physics. And if Tony hadn’t despised magic before, this would certainly drive him to it.

The thing is indescribable. It sustains itself, yet has no power source that Tony can find. It _glows_ , for fucks sake. It floats. It even moves. And as if that isn’t enough, it also hums on occasion, completely at random. 

If Tony didn’t know any better, he’d say the thing was messing with him.

Fortunately, he does know better. Despite every batshit, unbelievable, entirely ridiculous event that has led to this moment in his life, there are three things he still knows for certain: a flower is a flower, science is science, and magic is merely a science that has yet to be understood.

If Tony Stark is good at anything, it is understanding the impossible-- _doing_ the impossible.

He calls it Flower A. There will be more. Many more. If all goes to plan.

Flower A, despite its magical nature, does have consistencies in its structure. It doesn't follow any known laws, but there are _some_ kind of laws that govern its existence. This furthers his magic as science theory, but he chooses not to dwell on that at the moment. 

Flower A runs on its own energy source. JARVIS’s scans say the energy signature is the same throughout the flower’s properties. Meaning it’s getting a regular flow of energy from the same, endless generator. Whether that generator is a part of the flower’s own self sustaining energy or not, Tony has yet to determine.

Another fact about Flower A is that it never shuts off. This, at least, Tony accounted for. If the flower represents his curse, then the flower turning off would mean the end of this whole situation. The witch’s stipulations about the flower’s wilting causing the curse’s end are evidence enough of that. It’s just his luck that the crazy woman decided the flower dying meant the curse would break in a bad way. 

There are, apparently, a lot of bad ways his curse can break, and only one good way. And that good way depends entirely on the living, delicate rose with a short lifespan.

No way in hell is he gambling his future on a flower fated to die.

He wouldn’t mind, however, gambling it on something much more durable. Like iron. Or nitinol. But first he needs tests. _Some_ data to work with, at least.

He plucks off a petal, just to see what will happen. It does not grow back. The separated petal loses its glow. It is easy to conclude at this point that the power is not sustained by each individual part, but rather a flow stemming from a singular point. His current theory is that there is a core somewhere on the flower, most likely functioning as one of the flower’s parts. Any pieces attached to it would run on the energy it provides. 

If he can find the core then he can run the power generated from it through whatever material he chooses. He can remove all living components, piece by piece, and replace them with something much more reliable. Much more...him, and less...unknown magical entity with rules dictated by someone else.

He runs a few more scans and experiments, none of which turn up anything useful, and decides to proceed with the next step of Operation Flower B: forging a petal made of metal. 

It isn’t difficult to get the hang of. In fact, it’s kind of fun. Definitely something he hasn’t tried before. He ends up making dozens of petals with various sizes and designs. In most of them he uses a nickel titanium alloy to allow for flexibility and, in the event of any complications, repairability. After that he moves to step four of the operation, which just so happens to be the attachment of said petals to the flower.

It’s during step four that things go...slightly wrong. It’s nobody’s fault. Except maybe Dum-E’s. But that’s all in the past now. Point is, some real rose petals are destroyed in the process, the forged petals don’t conduct the energy as he had hoped they would, and his initial theory about the stem being the source of power is proven spectacularly wrong. 

The loss of the petals is a big hit, and he doesn’t panic (he doesn’t), but he maybe starts working on the solution a bit faster, for reasons that have nothing to do with the ~~fear, nausea, dread~~ emotions that may or may not have arisen as a result.

Thankfully, the failure of step four leads him down a much more fruitful avenue. It requires palladium, which sets him back a few days as JARVIS and he file through existing projects and gather all of the scraps they have in the workshop. Once he has it, however, he wastes no time in melting it down and forging a ring, much like the one he used to have in his arc reactor (before _somebody_ decided to get rid of his body and all of the technology that just so happened to be housed inside it).

He makes a singular, round nitinol petal as well, and works it onto the palladium unit he will be using to conduct the rose’s energy. Then he goes in for round two.

This time, he attaches his conductive, circular base to the rose’s pistil. He has to remove the inner ring of petals to make it fit, but the sacrifice is worth the subsequent glow that envelops the forged petal as it all comes together.

Tony will deny the loud, reverberating whoop of victory--and the subsequent happy dance--he makes at the success of his experiment until his dying day. (JARVIS, on the other hand, has no such compunctions. He happily records it, purely for scientific reasons, of course, and not because he has the ability to playback said audio whenever he pleases. Sir never has to know).

After that breakthrough, the rest of Operation Flower B is relatively smooth sailing. By the end of the next week, the flower is made entirely of metal; a glowing, humming rose of forged nickel titanium alloy and precious, invaluable palladium. There is no trace of the witch’s influence anymore. Even the glow, once a soft pink, is now a vivid blue.

(Arc reactor blue, he realizes with dread. It is the first instance of many to come where he will wonder if the curse he suffers under is now of nobody’s making but his own).

\---

It is easy to fall into what passes for a regular routine after the initial rush to ~~survive, strive, regain control~~ get a handle on the situation passes. Two weeks into his curse, he returns to SI. It is almost shockingly easy to run the company after being made incorporeal. The only thing that really takes a hit is his ability to appear in public. Which will certainly be an issue he needs to remedy soon, but nothing as dire as he had expected. Overall, nothing changes.

He spends most of his days in the lab keeping up with the technological advancements of the outside world. And then, sometimes--just to keep them on their toes--he decides to _be_ the technological advancements instead. 

It's a life not dissimilar to the one he had before all this mess. He tries not to think about what that says about him; about who he used to be - about who who is as a person, pared down to his barest essentials. Because there’s only silence, as there has always been. There is only the hum of machinery and whir of his bots to keep him company. And the worst part of it is that he doesn't care. That most days, he doesn’t even notice it. 

The days turn to weeks, then to months, and the silence drags on. 

Nothing changes.

Until everything does.

Pepper Potts is the first. She’s the first person to see him. The first to understand him. The first to show up on his doorstep and introduce herself to the man behind the curtain.

She’s also the first, and only, stranger he ends up inviting to his abode. In the end, she’s the only one he sees coming. Even that does nothing to prepare him for just how important she will become. How precious.

She should have broken the curse. She should have.

But.

Something goes wrong, somewhere. Something big. (And he wonders, as he will come to do many times in the near future. He wonders about the rose).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make it clear that any relationship developed in this fic doesn't go away. This is a multiship fic in which every relationship works in different ways, and develops at different speeds and through separate means. Even when the arc ends, or even when a character leaves, the relationship is still entirely relevent, and it is probably likely that the character will return later. Even as relationships shift and change, even as Tony's own change forces his relationships to change, their relevence won't.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark meets Pepper Potts. She's everything he expected her to be (and more), yet he finds himself thrown all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this fic is Iron Man 1 divergent, which means Tony was still kidnapped, tortured, and betrayed. The only difference is that he hasn't continued the Iron Man armor (he still escaped in it) until now. And also that he hasn't met Pepper Potts or James Rhodes yet. I'm trying hard not to think about the fact that that means he's literally been alone and at Obadiah's mercy for years now without even his most trusted friends, but I gotta say it's pretty hard. This is the first of what will probably be three chapters surrounding the Pepper Potts arc. If all goes according to plan. Thank you all so much for reading! Please leave comments or kudos if you like the chapter. Feedback is more than welcome.

Her knock is timid but the look in her eyes is not. In fact, if being wholly unimpressed was an art, Virginia Potts would be famous. It’s quite remarkable. Her brows are raised, eyes judging, and he had _seen_ her lips thin when he threw the door open, gold and red metal preceding the ear shattering blare of Back in Black by AC/DC.

It isn’t great, as first impressions go, but it’s exactly the kind that Tony tends to fall into naturally and constantly. He honestly expects the next thing he sees to be her back, followed by her parting words of resignation. She looks to be the no nonsense type typically driven to consternation just by the mere hint of his presence, and he knows this isn’t even close to what was in her job description when she signed on.

But none of that happens. She does not leave. She does not resign. She does not look contemptuous or disgusted or accusatory.

Instead. _Instead_ , she stays. (Instead, the world shifts). Instead, her brows drop. Her gaze softens, her lips quirk. She looks at him expectantly, then says in a tone both sharp and gentle, “Mr. Stark, I presume”. It is not a question.

A beat passes. Then a second, and a third. He clears his throat loudly, pitches forward on unsteady legs (he looks drunk, he knows he does-he feels it. And god, Tony hasn’t felt this out of his depth since he was a skinny fourteen year old at MIT, much too small and much too smart and much too young), and yells above the music.

“The one and only!” He spreads his arms as wide as they’ll go, to encompass all of everything, and wishes for a moment, so achingly fierce, that he was able to smile (to let her see his smile). A hated, sour feeling curdles in his gut like spoiled milk. He ~~swallows~~ imitates swallowing. Knows she can’t see it. Knows he isn’t doing it. (The feeling grows).

She nods shortly in acknowledgement and brushes a strand of brilliant orange hair away from her eyes. The pattern of sunlight that had splayed artfully across the span of her shoulders and pale neck shifts and morphs as the trees rustle behind her. She shivers, and for the first time since opening the door he notices the light breeze and half risen sun. 

It’s dawn. Huh.

“I’m your new personal assistant,” she says slowly, with the air of someone trying to regain the attention of a particularly unfocused child, “I was told to meet you here. At your home.”

“Right right, Ms. Virginia Potts! I thought you were supposed to be here on Wednesday!” He’s bad at tracking time, but he’s not that bad.

“It...it is Wednesday.” Oh. Whoops. “I’m-I’m sorry, could you lower the music, please?”

He frowns at that. “What? Why, why do you want me to lower my music? You got something against-”

“ _No_ , I’m just trying to have a conversation, here, with you, and you’re-”

“Well I don’t want to lower my music, so...”

“- _blaring_ rock music like it isn’t-”

“Is this going to be a thing? Because if it is, then maybe-”

“-six in the morning on a weekday-”

“We should take a step back. We should-I’m sorry, what was your name again? It’s-”

“-and you aren’t conducting an _official_ meeting with an employee.”

“-very hard to concentrate, with you _yelling_ at me. The-the music isn’t an issue if you don’t make it one.”

“That is-Okay, _enough_.” The words die in his throat so abruptly that he’s half convinced, if he had teeth right now, they’d be loudly clicking shut. “Mr. Stark,” she’s using the same polite, allowing tone she has been, but the unimpressed glare is back in full force, “I’m trying to talk to you, but I can’t. The music is too loud. It needs to be turned down, or we’re going to get nowhere.”

Tony opens his mouth to tell her just how much he doesn’t care, but is stalled _again_.

“Done, Ms. Potts,” a voice says instead. A voice that is decidedly not Tony’s. JARVIS, the traitor, immediately lowers the music.

“Wha-unbelievable. It’s _my_ music. You can’t just turn down my music!”

“Mr. Stark,” she begins, unfazed, and wow if he doesn’t already hate those words on her lips, “Ms. Horowitz reviewed the job requirements with me when I was hired, but I’m getting the impression I haven’t been fully debriefed on the situation. If we could take this inside, we might be able to smooth a few things over before I get started.”

Her command of authority would make even the most experienced of politicians weep. It certainly makes Tony want to listen, which puts her more than a peg above most of his esteemed board members.

Confidence isn’t the only thing Tony is beginning to notice about her, however. She holds herself well, a mixture of professionalism and poise worn with considerable ease; seemingly unafraid and unflappable in the face of what should be an intimidating situation. Paired with her sharp, clean cut suit and four inch heels, she looks more inclined to dominate a business meeting than step into the role of personal assistant. Granted, she would be personal assistant to the CEO of a multi billion dollar international corporation. But the point still stands.

He knows Ms. Potts worked as a Manager in Accounting. He’s had his eye on her for quite some time. Long before the message came through from HR that hey, you’ll need a PA again if you want to keep up with the company right now, here’s one we thought would fit the bill (please don’t scare this one off), she’s been on his radar. But he’s never met her before. Barely kept up with her beyond tagging her as a potential candidate for a better position. Now here she is, standing in front of him like a sleek, well dressed pillar of unshakable competence, and he _still_ can’t quite figure out if this is a promotion or a demotion for her.

On one hand, Ms. Potts deserves the jump in salary and recognition. Nothing will do that quite like being seen at his side. On the _other_ , nobody has survived this job for longer than their first paycheck, and sending anybody into the crossfire is equivalent to an assured resignation.

Perhaps they think she’s capable enough to wrangle him. Perhaps they need her out of the way.

He will undoubtedly need to look into her reasons for being here, but right now he’s content to let things play out uninterrupted. He knows all he needs to know. She’s smart, good at her job, and apparently incapable of taking his shit. 

He hasn’t decided if he likes that last one just yet.

“You’ve got quite the bite on you, Ms. Potts.” He moves over to make space in the doorway, but she gives him The Look again. “What?! What now?”

“I have pepper spray in my purse with your name on it if you touch me right now. Sir.”

“Wh-Why are you telling me that? Have I threatened you in some way?!” He feels like he’s just been put through the shredder. This woman takes no prisoners. He would be impressed if he wasn’t absolutely terrified right now. 

She crosses her arms, but it doesn’t look defensive. If anything, she looks five seconds away from stabbing him with her heels. “Mr. Stark,” He really wishes she would stop calling him that. “you opened the door in a mechanized-possibly weaponized-suit, proceeded to argue with me while in it, and blocked half of the doorway with it as you invited me in. Adding that to your reputation, I wouldn’t exactly call this interaction peaceful.”

And. Okay. He had completely forgotten about the suit. Forgotten about everything, in fact. And with the sudden return of reality comes the realization that he had felt human, for just one moment. He had stood here and talked-let the silence be filled by something other than music-and all of his worries had faded away.

“Okay,” he says, momentarily thrown and desperately trying not to think too hard about it ~~(about this, her, everything, **about-** ) ~~, “that’s reasonable. That’s-we can work with that. I’m-I should say sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to threaten you I just...need this-uh, suit. For purposes...of the-medical variety. Health reasons, you know. It’s-come in. Come-” He takes a few steps back into the building and clears the doorway, eyes catching for a second on the expanse of sunlight that follows him across the sleek metal floor. 

When he glances back up at her she looks unconvinced, a critical brow raised and that purse to her lips again. But she steps forward as if she always meant to, and enters the building without further preamble.

And he will admit, quietly and only to himself (only ever to himself), that the relief he feels at seeing her lack of fear is enough to take his breath away.

“Ms. Potts!” he exclaims, “Pepper. Pep! Ms. Pepper Potts. Welcome to my humble abode.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark-”

“Tony.”

“I’m sorry?” They’re both standing a few feet apart now. She’s closer to the entrance, looking up at the high ceilings and spiraling staircase with an expression he can’t quite name. He’s further in, near the couch and the piano ( _mom’s_ piano), the armor standing unnaturally stiff in the middle of the room. She turns to look at him when he speaks, and he has to fight against the pull of kindness in her eyes.

“It’s Tony. Call me Tony. Mr. Stark was my old man. And I’m not exactly getting on in years, you know. Do I look like a Mr. Stark? No, of course not. I look like a Tony. Genius, billionaire, playboy-” he twirls his hands dramatically and gives her a mocking half bow “-philanthropist.”

“Well, Mr. Stark-Tony,” she corrects at his offended tilt of the head, “I wouldn’t know much about how you look right now, would I. Considering your...health issue.”

He waves a forgiving hand at her, inciting another small, ghost of a smile. “That’s alright, Ms. Potts. I’m sure the internet has a few photos we can scrounge up. We’ll put it into an introductory slideshow and everything. Give you the whole shebang. Purely for official debriefing purposes, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We’ve got to keep you in the loop. Can’t have you thinking I’m not the stunning genius you expected.”

“Those aren’t the exact words I’d use.”

“Of course not. Handsome fits the bill much better. Young, even. Virulent. Charming. Brilliant. A veritable mastermind.”

Her face twists into something skeptical, but her eyes crinkle around the edges with amusement. He feels something in him warm. For a moment, it feels like his heart is beating. Like his skin is on fire. Her lip pulls up enough to show a sliver of teeth, and she says, “for an alleged genius, you are very far off the mark. In fact, I’d say you might actually be getting colder.”

The indignant squawk he makes at that is more than a bit embarrassing, and he’s painfully relieved when JARVIS interjects himself into the conversation before Tony can make a further fool of himself.

“While we may not have photographic slideshows, Ms. Potts, I am more than capable of bringing you up to speed,” JARVIS says, voice calm and smooth, almost soothing. The tension bleeds from the room, and Pepper turns away from Tony to look up at the ceiling again, perplexed.

“That’s JARVIS,” Tony tells her. He tries to keep the pride out of his voice, but it’s difficult when he thinks about how far JARVIS has come; how JARVIS interacts with others so easily now-makes his own decisions. “It stands for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. He’s an AI--a robot butler of sorts. Completely harmless. He just monitors the building and keeps track of my work.” He wants to say that JARVIS practically runs the place. That he’s more than just a glorified filing and security system. But even when Obadiah had been there, trusted and caring and a steady presence at his side (and god, what did it say about him, that Obadiah had done what he’d done? Thought what he’d thought? What did it say about Tony?), he had never told the man about JARVIS’s true sentience. It’s a risk he just can’t take, not with himself and especially not with his ~~son, child, creation,~~ tech.

Even so, she looks wary. “So it can see us? Everywhere in the building?”

“Yes, but not in the bedrooms. Not fully.” As soon as the words leave his mouth he wants to bite his damn tongue. It doesn’t sound nearly as comforting as it had in his head.

“Passive monitoring, Ms. Potts,” JARVIS interferes, before the look on her face can move from wary to horrified, “I will be able to read your vitals and monitor security points, but I will not have access to any other information inside your room or any private spaces. In the case of an emergency, the proper protocols will be activated. That is all.”

“Like I said, he’s harmless.” There’s an emphasis on the pronoun that he tries not to make. He doesn’t want to draw attention. But it’s hard when he hears the casual dehumanization. She doesn’t seem to notice, but when she speaks again it's different--respectful.

“I’d be happy to take you up on your offer, then, JARVIS,” she tells the ceiling. It’s more than a little amusing, and Tony finds himself smiling before he can stop himself.

He moves to close the door. Now that everything is settled he doubts she’ll be leaving out of it anytime soon (he hopes she won’t. And he doesn’t like her. _He doesn’t_ . But it’s been...silent lately. ~~Lonely~~ ). “JARVIS will go over all of the paperwork with you. Get you situated. Feel free to order anything you need or want or..whatever. And I suppose you’ll need help with your bags. I’ll have someone bring them in for you. Oh! And don’t forget to notify HR about your arrival. I’m sure they’re all worried about your status as an employee right now. Choose whatever room you want, I don’t mind, but whatever you choose, just know that the lab is off limits.”

“The lab?” She sounds intrigued more than anything, but it still sets him on edge.

“Yeah, the lab. My lab. Where the genius happens. Don’t go in it. Don’t go near it. I don’t like visitors, and neither does JARVIS.” That’s not true, JARVIS loves visitors. It means he can force Tony to take care of himself. The joke’s on JARVIS, though, Tony doesn’t need food now. Or sleep. But Pepper doesn’t have to know that.

“Where is this lab?” she asks. Which is-reasonable. She has to know where it is to avoid it, he supposes, but for some reason the words won’t come out. It feels like a weakness, suddenly. Like he’s being asked to expose some vulnerable part of him to this woman he’s never met before (and he can’t believe he forgot, even for a moment, that she’s a stranger, ~~that she’s a threat~~ ~~-~~ ).

The question comes back, unprompted. Why was she sent here? What could have happened? It’s a fine line between trust and disapproval, sending her to be his PA. He wonders what she did, if she did anything, and makes a note to look into it sooner than he had planned (this isn’t paranoia. He’s not paranoid. He’s not. He’s just...he’s cautious. He’s-he remembers Obadiah. ~~How could he not? And he can’t stop thinking about it now because somebody is in his **_space_ ** , they’re-no. **_No._ ** _Not now_ ). ~~

“The lab is down the stairs to your left, Ms. Potts,” JARVIS tells her, a comforting presence in the wake of Tony’s quiet breakdown, seamlessly covering for his sudden silence, “The rooms are up the stairs to your right, if you are ready to move forward.”

“Oh, um, alright.” She takes a step toward the stairs, then hesitates, looking back at Tony. Checking on something, although he isn’t sure what.

He waves a dismissive gauntlet to rid her of whatever worries, then clears his throat loudly and does a quick recap: “so, free reign except for the lab. Work starts at 8am tomorrow and JARVIS will tell you the rest. Don’t worry about your luggage, I’ll have it brought to whatever room you choose.” The words sound airy, and he tries to make it the light, easy going kind of airy instead of the ‘I’m out of breath, three seconds away from and just coming off of a panic attack’ kind. 

He’s not so sure it works.

But she doesn’t ask. Something must put her off. Instead, she nods sharply. Turns her back. Instead, she leaves.

And Tony flees.

(A bot brings in her bags. Tony doesn’t come upstairs for the rest of the day. She never comes down)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions rise. Tony realizes he may need to take charge if he wants to keep what he has left of his parents. Pepper is, as always, already ten steps ahead of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is where the lack of Pepper and Rhodey in his life before now begins to show. He's vulnerable and he's been isolated from everyone except Obadiah basically his whole life. He's paranoid right now, and just in an all around bad mental space, what with everything that's happened to him recently.

Tony hides away. It’s what he’s good at. What he does-what he’s always done, long before witches and curses and metal flowers. He tinkers in the basement for hours on end and doesn’t think about the new person in his manor, in his home, in his _space_. 

It’s been five months of calls and emails and avoiding contact with the outside world, and despite that, a two week’s notice about his new PA should have been enough. He’d thought it was enough. But then she’d shown up on his doorstep with kind eyes and warm words and steely competence and he’d been utterly blown away, left wrong footed and disoriented in her wake.

But he’s not thinking about that ~~(not thinking about her smile, beautiful blue eyes, hair like-no, he’s~~ ~~_not)_ ~~. He thinks about other things, instead. Like the millisecond delay in Mark 10’s left leg. The faint sputter in the engine of his jaguar. How Dum-E’s wheels squeal every five minutes. Not to mention the suits that need upgrades and the fact that the new version of the starkphone is due for release in less than a week. So he draws up the schematics for Mark 12. Fine tunes the joints and adjusts the heads up display. Dallies with some new accessibility features for disabled starkphone users. 

At some point a call comes in from R&D about spearheading the first citywide clean energies project, and he gladly takes that up as well. Integrating the required systems means a lot of legal legwork, but Kierin Ahila from NY Legal is already making headway on the subject. It’s mostly under the radar right now, but still time consuming for all parties involved, and between CCE:0, the starkphone, finishing his suit upgrades, and his other projects, he becomes swamped with work by her second day in the manor.

And the thing is, time works differently when he’s in the lab. Staying under for too long makes everything monotonous. It’s task after task with no reprieve. He doesn’t need breaks or sleep anymore. Doesn’t need to stop. Doesn’t need to do anything except move from one project to another. Slowly, the passage of time begins to lose all meaning. 

He falls into a pattern. He gets distracted.

And so of course that means he’s completely caught off guard when Pepper doesn’t, in fact, just stay upstairs and mind her own business, but instead tries to contact him.

He’s got his gauntlets deep in the guts of what was once a robot motorcycle hybrid when it happens, surrounded by the projected hologram of its schematics and rambling so quickly that half the words don’t even make it out of his mouth. JARVIS decides to notify him of the call with an unnecessarily violent _ding!_ that echoes so loudly it halts Tony’s tirade dead in its tracks, and then proceeds to lower Tony’s music, because of course he does. _Then_ , before Tony can demand some answers (he and JARVIS are definitely going to have A Talk after this), Pepper’s voice is filtering through the coms.

“Mr. Stark. Tony,” she starts, and Tony wants to _scream_. He hasn’t spoken in what feels like decades, and her voice sounds almost discordant in the void once filled by music and machinery and JARVIS’s soft, electronic tones. He’s taut as a wire, expecting any number of things-accusations, judgements, complaints. There are rules to treating guests that Tony knows he’s broken, and a little criticism is probably in order. But her words are free of condemnation, a simple, “I need you to sign some papers for me. Can you meet me in the kitchen?” and that’s it. 

For some reason, it almost seems worse.

“What’s the time on those signatures, J?” His voice should be rough from disuse, but it sounds as smooth as Pepper’s does (he doesn’t think about that, either).

“At most a recommended 5 minute delay, Sir,” JARVIS wastes no time responding, “Department Head of Los Angeles PR is being railroaded expertly by General Greene.”

“Proof of confirmation?”

“Physical confirmation _is_ required. Preferably before the meeting’s end, although Mrs. Ris is handling the situation admirably. Upon completion, the documents will be scanned and sent via email by Ms. Potts. Your presence is only required briefly, if immediately.”

Figures. Something always seems to come up just as he starts a project. At least the clean up is easy, this time. Extracting himself from the wiring takes little effort or maneuvering, and with a tap and a wave the holograms are down, machine set to standby. Simple as that.

The armor folds around him with a twist of the wrist, and then he’s bounding up the steps two at a time and sliding across the foyer to reach the kitchen.

He just needs to get this over with. In and out. In and out and then he can retreat. He doesn’t even have to say a word. Just-

“Mr. Stark!” She says loudly, warmly, sounding almost pleasantly surprised, and he stops so abruptly in the doorway he’s half convinced there’s a barrier of some kind blocking his way.

“Ms. Potts,” he counters, before he can think of anything to say, “waiting on little old me?”

“Among other things. My work doesn’t stop for anything, but I can assure you that I would sit here until the sun goes down, every day of the week, just to see your pen across this paper.” She pointedly indicates the file sitting innocently next to her on the kitchen island.

Two stools to the left of the file, she occupies her own seat quite comfortably, and doesn’t seem inclined to move anytime soon. Her fashionable flats are propped up on the bottom rung, legs crossed at the ankle, and a spread of papers takes up the entirety of the space in front of her and to her left. Some are marked up in red and clearly revised, while others look organized to perfection, signed and dated and waiting to be filed away.

Her pen taps a sharp staccato against the documents in front of her, and her gaze only remains on him a moment longer before returning to her work. The ensuing silence suddenly feels much worse than the lack of it had earlier.

“That looks complicated,” he breathes into it, hoping that his desperation doesn’t seem as obvious to her as it does him. He approaches the opposite side of the island and uses a finger to slide the file across the surface towards him, “what is that? Are you scheduling?” 

She says nothing, and he picks up the blue pen that had been set on the folder, clicking the end against the counter as he watches her. “Charity events? Is it...galas? Do I have any galas coming up? Invitations? No?” 

He clicks the pen a couple more times, then sets it back down and leans forward on his forearms. It feels clunky with the suit, especially with the height of the kitchen island (he thinks that maybe he needs to install higher lifts into the suit, but honestly at this point it’s just getting ridiculous), but he ignores that for now. He’s got more important things on his mind, like-

“Art pieces. It’s gotta be art pieces, then. They’re always trying to get me to buy. It’s ridiculous. They tell me I need to add to my collection? What collection.” He pointedly doesn’t look at the massive piece of art sitting on the wall across from him. It consists entirely of a large black dot on a white background. He honestly has no idea what that thing is. He doesn’t even remember buying it. “If it’s art, just say no. I don’t need it, I barely want it. Who needs a fall rendition of the empire state building? Not me. And the next time Chalin asks, you can tell him where to stick it.”

That gets a smile out of her, although it's a brief one. She barely pauses as she speaks. “ _No_ ,” it sounds at once both amused and reprimanding, “not art. Contract negotiations.” 

“Contract negotiations?” That makes him come up short. His personal assistant should not be doing negotiations.

She glances over at him, then, but only for a second. He can’t even begin to decipher the look in her eyes. “For a new project under clean energies,” she clarifies, as if that’s the issue here.

“The CCE:0. Yeah, no, I...know what project that is. I’ve been working on it for-” _Weeks? Months?_ “-days now. What I’m concerned about right now is you. Where is Legal in all of this? What, Sierra too busy?”

“Mrs. Pink is on maternity leave, Mr. Stark-”

“Tony.”

She sighs. “Tony. And Legal is doing the best they can, but without your help-”

“ _My_ help? I’m sorry, but I don’t work Legal, that's what we've got David for.”

“David Chan? David Chan quit, sir. Two weeks ago.”

He lets out a breath and ducks his head into his hands. This is getting…too much. Too fast. “Okay. He quit. Of course he did. He’s only the most capable person in Legal.” When the hell had all of this happened? He couldn’t possibly be this disconnected. Could he? “And what-what about...So Sierra is on leave. Ahila is busy. And you...decided to what? Pick up contract negotiations out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Someone had to.”

“‘Someone had to’. Right. And that someone just happened to be you.” The words escape him before he can stop them, but he's skating hard on the line of regret already, and he doesn’t have time to beat around the bush.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you here, _Ms. Potts_. I haven’t had a personal assistant in years. The last five quit. They wouldn’t send you here - a _manager_ in _accounting,_ unless they wanted you gone. Out of the way. Retired. Resigned. Fired. I don’t care. Half of my staff seems to be missing, you’re picking up highly classified work ‘out of the goodness of your heart’, and I’m just supposed to believe you’re here because you wanted to be?”

She looks-

Shocked.

God, _he feels_ shocked. His mouth burns. He doesn’t even have a mouth and it’s burning. 

She stands from her seat in a burst of anger, hair a wreath of flames against the light of the setting sun, and sets her furious sights on him in what should really be classified as a lethal attack. He shrinks against the table.

“ _Mr. Stark_ ,” she snaps, and despite everything she still doesn’t spit it out-doesn’t sound resentful. Just-angry. “I was _sent_ here.” Her eyes narrow and her lips thin. She raises her chin in defiance, as if she expects he’ll react to this unpleasantly, and bites down on her next words with especial tenacity, “because I happened to save your company millions of dollars. I was sent _here_ , because I happened to notice that one of your most valuable employees made an accounting error so bad it would have cost your reputation and your money. _I_ was sent here. Because this _man_ decided to hide his mistake and _refuse to admit to it_ , instead of owning up to it and fixing it. Because I decided not to keep quiet about it. Because I decided to do something, and they wanted me gone.”

The last words leave her lips and the room falls dead silent. Her gaze is determined, unmoving. She watches him and waits, but he’s not sure what for. He’s not angry at her, after all. He’s angry at everything else. At himself, for driving her to this. For not looking into this. For not knowing this was happening. At his company, for covering up and hurting others and not taking responsibility. At his employees, for letting this happen. At Obadiah, for...everything. For how this company turned out. How hard it’s been without him. How difficult it is to keep up, to do what he had done. To do it better. How scared his employees are-of him, of his company, of this whole sick twisted system.

He doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m not leaving, Tony.” 

His head snaps up, dizzyingly quickly. He meets her eyes and sees resolution. But there’s kindness there, too. Compassion. 

She _cares_. And maybe it’s just about the company. Or the accountability. Maybe she just cares about doing things right, and helping those that need it. Maybe it isn’t about him. 

But it’s enough (more than enough).

“I’m not leaving unless someone makes me. They can throw whatever they want at me. Push me to resign. Send me here.” She shares a smile with him, as if they’re in on the same joke (as if they’re in this together). “But I won’t quit. I won’t leave until someone makes me.”

“I won’t make you,” he finds himself saying, and she nods.

“Okay then, Mr. Stark.” She retakes her seat, relaxing. “Tony. If you can sign that, please. I’m sure Mrs. Ris would greatly appreciate it.”

He looks down at the file again, forgotten in the commotion. He taps the pen with his finger. Flips the file open and lingers over the words for a moment. Papers rustle across from him as Pepper shifts; a light, easy sound. Her pen scratches across another document, probably equally important. He taps his own pen again, then picks it up. Signs with a flourish. Lays it flat on the closed folder to avoid clicking it again.

Pepper looks up at him and smiles, reaching across the island to grab the folder. “Thank you, Tony,” she says, expression warm.

“Right.” She stands with the papers and makes to leave the room, but he taps his fingers on the table, stopping her. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. You and me both. I’ve been remiss, these past few-” Weeks? Months? It feels like years, sometimes. He should really check to see how long he’s been in the lab. “-days. I need to look over some things. Do other things. Make sure-things-are in order. So I’ll be out for a while. And when I come back, things are going to change.”

“That’s a lot of things,” she says, with a half smile and raised brows.

“Yeah, but I’m good for it.” He waves a hand, feeling encouraged when her smile widens, eyes crinkling. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Mm Hm. And how long will these-uh, things take? If you’re going to take care of all of them.”

“A while,” he admits, “so communication is open. I’ll be...around. More. But not entirely. So if you need anything that JARVIS can’t provide, let him know and he’ll get it back to me.”

“He’s been very helpful so far. I doubt I’ll need you at all, Mr. Stark, but the sentiment is appreciated.”

He splutters. “Well, if things need to be signed-”

“I’ll be sure to call you over. Now, I’ve got a PR Head stuck in an office with a blustering, self important General. If we could take this meeting at another time?”

He sighs outwardly, but he knows he deserves this. It’s not professional, but it’s certainly fun, and Pepper seems completely in her element. “Later then, Ms. Potts,” he says, a smile curling beneath the mask. 

“If that is all, Mr. Stark?”

“That will be all, Ms. Potts.”

She nods sharply, professionally, turns on her heel and walks away without another word. He honestly can’t say if this conversation went better or worse than the last one. “That’s improvement, right J? That right there, that’s progress. I think we could be going places.”

“If you say so, Sir,” JARVIS responds drily, acting like a buzzkill, as always. Tony expertly ignores him.

“Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. That’s nice. I like it. Pepper and Tony, unstoppable titans of the industry.”

“Perhaps indomitable, Sir.”

“Oooh, that’s a good one. The Indomitable Pepper Potts.” It sounds like a comic book title. He could totally sell it.

“And the Invincible Tony Stark.”

“Really?” He makes a face at that. “No, absolutely not. That sounds like a stripper name. Tacky. Maybe something more impressive. Like...like superhero worthy. Maybe...the Invincible Iron Man.”

“Of course, Sir, because that sounds much more tasteful.”

“Yeah, I didn’t like it either. It’s not even iron, right? It’s a gold titanium alloy.” He happily starts to clomp his way downstairs. Back to the lab. Safety. “This is why we leave the superheroing to others.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments between Tony and Pepper, as they grow both closer and farther apart.

He approaches her three days after their second, admittedly much more emotional encounter. She’s in the area adjacent to the kitchen, resting against the pristine white arm of the living room couch, a laptop settled atop her thighs. She glances up when he enters the room, but otherwise doesn’t react.

He sprawls across the other end of the couch with as much fervor as possible, feeling it practically rock beneath the weight of his armor, and lets out a loud exhale. “So!” he exclaims loudly, for lack of anything better to say, “Pepper.” That’s about as far as he gets.

“Yes, Mr. Stark?” she responds evenly, eyes still locked on the screen in front of her. Her fingers don’t even pause in their rapid _tap-tap-tap_ on the keyboard.

He shifts uncomfortably and starts drumming his own rhythm against the back of the sofa. “You make my schedule, right? That’s something you...do.” He _knows_ it’s something she does, what he doesn’t know is why the hell he’s even asking her when he can just demand it.

“That is something I do, Mr. Stark, as your PA. However, considering your recent bout of reticence, I’ve been forced to prioritize other concerns. I apologize if I’ve been remiss.” She does actually sound sorry, which is surprising. What’s more surprising is her concern when she finally looks up at him. “I have actually been keeping your schedule up to date, but JARVIS has been adamant about what was allowed through to you. Conference calls and daily reports apparently didn’t make the cut.”

“I apologize, Ms. Potts. I was under strict orders.” And wow, JARVIS wastes absolutely no time in ratting him out.

“It’s-lockdown protocols.” He sends a glare to the nearest camera, scowling indignantly. Unbelievable. “They’re down now, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I’m going to need those conference calls, though.” She’s nodding, already tapping away again at her computer. “Start taking any calls that don’t require my presence, but leave all conferences to me. Meetings will be online only, or over the phone. Not in person, I don’t do that anymore. I’m going to be directing a lot of people to you, fit them in as you see fit, but priority calls will need to be scheduled within a week of being notified. You get all of that?”

She smirks up at him. “Yes, sir. I think I’ll manage.” Her fingers fly over the keyboard now, and she barely even flits her eyes to screen, keeping them locked on him. Tony himself seems to be suffering from the opposite, since he can’t draw his eyes away from the slide of her fingers across the keys. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” He jumps, snapping out of his daze, and forces himself to meet her eyes. He nods at what he sees there, standing to create some distance.

“That will be all, Ms. Potts. For now. I’ll contact you again with more information as the situation evolves.” The strict professionalism seems unwarranted, but he can understand it. They're both working right now, and the last thing he wants is to make her feel uncomfortable.

“Of course, Mr. Stark. Thank you for the update.”

“Right." He clears his throat awkwardly, dallies for a bit longer as she turns her attention away from him once more. When he finally leaves the room, many uncomfortable minutes afterward, it is with the distinct feeling that he’s just been dismissed

\---

Later that night he comes upstairs again. He doesn’t know why. Maybe to look at the stars. Or cook some food. Maybe to just...be - elsewhere. He doesn’t know.

But Pepper is there, still. Eyes on the computer. Working. 

“Pepper!” He says it like he’s surprised she’s there - like he didn’t expect her to be - and realizes that he’s _not_. Perhaps he isn’t the only workaholic in the house anymore. “You know it’s midnight, right?” 

As if there aren’t massive windows across the far wall to make it obvious.

Sometimes he really thinks he should invest in a brain to mouth filter.

“I’m aware, Mr. Stark.” There’s no bite to it like there usually would be. In fact, she doesn’t sound engaged at all. Her eyes are alert but her voice is tired. In face, everything else about her looks _worn down_.

He can’t exactly tell her that, though, can he? He knows enough about social interaction to be aware of how tactless that would be.

Unfortunately, that’s about as far reaching as his tact extends.

“You aren’t working, are you? Because SI has a strict policy about unpaid overtime. Which is that it doesn’t happen. There’s unpaid nothing; everything is paid. JARVIS you’re recording this, right? How long have you been up here. You realize I visited you almost six hours ago. Have you had _any_ breaks?” There’s this thing he does, that he’s doing now, when he doesn’t know what to say. And it isn’t that he suddenly develops a brain to mouth filter, but rather that the shitty one he usually has just...stops existing. 

He’s rambling. He realizes it at about the same time she does, if the sudden look of exasperation is anything to go by.

“It sounds to me like I’m not the only one that needs sleep.”

He scoffs. “I don’t, trust me.”

“So I need sleep but you don’t.” Her tone of voice is enough to convey skepticism, but for added benefit she also raises her eyebrows and shoves a fist under chin, giving him her undying, highly disbelieving attention. The pillow she’s resting her elbow on to prop her head up sinks beneath her weight. She looks very - at home. Comfortable. As if she’s come back from a long day of work to rest her feet on the couch and play games on her laptop.

But that isn’t what she’s doing. She’s working. And he realizes how hypocritical it is of him to criticize her for being a workaholic, but he can’t have his employees passing out in the middle of his house because he’s too barbaric to let them sleep. He has _standards_ , thank you very much.

“I can’t sleep. It’s a medical issue.”

“Oh, does it go along with your need to constantly wear Lannister colors?”

“I - uh, _yes_ , but that’s not...not important.” This is clearly a losing battle. He has no idea why he’s still trying at this point.

“Of course. You working for weeks on end without sleeping _or_ eating is fine, but me putting in the extra hours to get the heaps of work I have done is just too much for you.”

He lets out a tremulous breath and throws himself into his place across from her. She’s glaring at him now, but even that looks tired. “Pepper,” he says, and it comes out quieter than he had meant it to - softer, “you don’t need to work this hard. I know it’s a lot. I’ve put a lot on your shoulders-”

She cuts a hand through the air. “It isn’t the amount of work that’s bothering me. I’m capable of handling whatever you throw at me.”

“I’m not _throwing it at you_. It’s not an attack. This-” he makes a short gesture to indicate the laptop and the papers covering the coffee table “-this is all work that can be done tomorrow. It isn’t important. Nothing is more important than your health.”

“I have a job to do. In case you’ve forgotten, my tenure with the company isn’t exactly guaranteed.” 

“So all of this is, what? Making yourself indispensable?” If they keep rehashing this conversation, he’s going to get hives. Although he supposes it’s karma. It doesn’t feel so great being on the receiving end of false accusations. “Nobody is making you leave. Hell, you should be getting a promotion! Do you realize how much you’ve helped m-this company?”

Painfully honest. Definitely not what he meant to say. 

She blinks at him, silent. Red rings her eyes, and he’s faced with the fact that her mask is cracking, only slightly. She looks - vulnerable.

He hates this.

“Pepper,” he says again, like a benediction, because he can’t stop speaking her name, “you said you wouldn’t leave.”

She nods, but her lips are pressed together too tightly for her to speak. Her eyes don’t leave him, though - resolute.

He breathes out slowly, “I said I wouldn’t make you.” Voicing it feels like pulling teeth. His stomach rolls. If he had a body right now he would probably be sweating, or shaking. This is ridiculous. It’s not a love confession (it feels more important than that).

“I suppose you did,” she finally manages, and no, he doesn’t feel jealous that she’s somehow able to keep her voice completely steady, despite the clearly charged emotional atmosphere here.

He should break the tension. Say something like “okay! Glad we had this talk. Let’s do this again never.” Leave and let things cool down.

Instead, what comes out is this, “It gets quiet here. But it’s been...less quiet - with you. You’re all I have here, aside from JARVIS.”

She doesn’t have anything to say in response to that. He hadn’t expected her to. He forcibly extricates himself from the sinking couch cushions. Turning abruptly and striding away as quickly as robotically possible. “Okay! Good talk. Let’s do this again never.”

He disappears down the stairs before she can find the words.

\---

There are the big moments and the small moments.

Pepper is like a pull. There are spaces between the chaos, random yet inevitable, where he takes the time to think. When those moments come, like clockwork (except a lot less reliable, in Tony’s not so humble opinion), he finds himself inexplicably drawn up the stairs and to Pepper’s side.

She spends a lot of her time working in the kitchen/living area. She doesn’t push herself like she had the first few weeks of her stay, but that doesn’t mean her competence is lessened in any way. She’s extremely diligent, easily capable of tracking his life, keeping it in order, and keeping him in order as well. On top of that, she’s taken on the more paperwork oriented parts of running SI. Tony works through business meeting after business meeting (all without showing his face, of course). Concurrently, she files the paperwork to make it legal, and coordinates everything without a single clerical error.

He would be worried about her overworking again if she hadn’t adjusted to a much better schedule after their last conversation. The only conclusion he can come to, after seeing her file a particularly difficult document with _vicious_ satisfaction, is that she _likes_ this. He has no idea why, he would absolutely hate it, but he supposes everybody can’t be Tony Stark.

\---

She cooks for him sometimes.

He’s asked JARVIS to ask her not to, but on top of liking Pepper, JARVIS seems to take a vindictive glee in watching Tony suffer from other people’s efforts to take care of him. Like attracts like, Tony admits forgivingly, even as he plans to embed “Never Gonna Give You Up” so far into JARVIS’s servers that he’ll be hearing it for the rest of his life.

Besides, the problem isn’t that Pepper cooks, it’s that she cooks massive meals in the kitchen while he’s trapped there, and then proceeds to watch him like a hawk every time she sets a plate in front of him. It’s the worst peer pressure he’s ever suffered in his life, and he’s been forced to beat a hasty retreat more than one time when Pepper starts up the stove.

But Pepper’s unstoppable. So she leaves the plates outside of his lab instead.

\---

In the small moments - between other, bigger moments - they talk to each other, and she calls him Tony. 

One night, about a month and a half into her stay (and about a week and a half after their first nighttime conversation), he stomps his way upstairs in the new Mark 13 (it’s slimmer and sleeker - more form fitting; makes him feel like a person again) to see her curled up on the couch. Her shoes are off this time, feet tucked up under her, and she’s watching something on the large TV pinned to the wall. There’s a wine glass dangling in one hand, the other wrapped loosely around her ankle, but she lets go to give him a small wave when she sees him.

“Tony,” she says warmly, before taking a rather large sip from her glass, “are you staying?”

“Up here? Uh, yeah, that was the plan. For a-uh-while, at least.” He watches her take another large sip, although at this point he thinks it should probably be classified as a gulp. “Rough day?”

“Businessmen,” she snorts, making a face.

He wants to be offended, but he honestly can’t fault her on that. “Yeah,” he agrees instead, coming around the side of the couch, “what are we watching?”

“Sex and the City.” She waves a magnanimous hand. “You can sit.”

He can feel the corners of his mouth turning up, and takes the appointed seat with grace. “Wow. Thank you. Tipsy you is...quite the charmer.”

“I’m the most charming person you’ll ever meet, sir,” she sniffs, jutting out her chin. 

That startles a laugh out of him. “Is that so? That’s quite the competition, considering some of the people I’ve met.”

“Oh, and who is that? Some stuffy politicians? That rude man in the tophat with the disgusting haircut who called himself a businessman? What, are you saying I can’t stand up to them?”

“Uh, no, I’m just saying-”

“Because I’ll have you know I’m-I’ve got...moves.”

“Moves, right. Well I’ll just go right ahead and tell Beyonce that. I’m sure the president-”

“Oh please!”

“-the _literal president_ of the united states can’t hold a candle to you.”

“I’m - I could be president. I could even be a CEO. Pepper Potts, CEO - revolushhh, ss...uhn-ary.”

“I don’t doubt it-” and that’s the honest truth “-but I think my initial assessment of tipsy may have been wrong. Borderline drunk seems more accurate, right now.”

She pouts at him, bottom lip and all, and another laugh bubbles out of him so suddenly even he’s caught off guard. 

“Drink with me?” 

“No,” he chuckles, “I don’t think so, but I’ll sit with you. For the night.”

“Okay,” she whispers, and gives him a sloppy grin, “cheers.”

\---

Not every time he talks with Pepper is fun. Not every time is even an argument, or a disagreement. 

He comes upstairs to silence, one day, an indeterminable amount of time into her stay. The sun is high, clouds nowhere in sight, and the foyer is empty, bathed in light. So is the living room. 

She’s in the kitchen - at the oven - but she isn’t cooking. She’s just...leaning there, phone in hand. She’s clearly texting somebody, but she doesn’t look happy. She looks...upset. 

He’s not exactly being silent, but she’s too distracted to hear him approach, so he chooses to keep his distance on the far side of the kitchen island and clear his throat.

She startles violently and screams so loudly it actually makes _him_ jump, then whips around with the phone in her hand like she’s going to bludgeon her attacker with it.

“Holy shit,” he breathes, honestly at a loss for words.

She makes a tiny ‘o’ with her mouth, and it looks utterly ridiculous with her arm still outstretched, phone in hand, the other curled protectively over her chest. “That-I-Oh my god I’m so sorry!” She lets out in a rush. There’s a light dusting of red high on her cheeks, and the doe eyed, surprised look on her face is enough to make him burst with laughter.

“H-holy shit!” he cracks up, “That was-” his words dissolve into a series of giggles, and he has to lean one arm against the counter to keep his balance.

Pepper brushes a lock out of her eyes, looking murderous. “I cannot believe you right now! Wh-why would you-that is-you are _so_ -” she splutters her way into a narrow eyed scowl, and pins him beneath her glare. “You are a child.”

“I know,” he wheezes, attempting to regain his breath, “I know. I’m sorry.” He’s really not. “What were you doing, anyway?”

Instantly, the amusement dies. She tenses, turns away. He watches her fiddle with the phone for a moment before walking forward, taking a stool on the opposite side of the island. “I was just-” she sighs, cutting herself off, and doesn’t continue for a while.

Tony takes a seat as well, to level the playing field, and stays silent as she rests the phone on the table, pushing it away, then pulling it back again. She eyes it like it stole her children and kicked all of her puppies, but she doesn’t look angry. Disappointed would be a better word; miserable.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” she swallows around the words, breathes out and places her head in her hands, deflating like a balloon. He’s distinctly reminded of their conversation in the kitchen, all those weeks ago, when their roles were reversed.

He reaches out hesitantly. And he’s never been more uncertain about anything in his life, but he places his hand on her shoulder. It’s not warm. It’s not soft. It’s definitely not comforting. It is, in fact, 100% awkward. Yet she relaxes under the touch, heaving out a breath that makes him think she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“Okay,” he manages, for lack of anything better to say. Silence descends.

They sit there for what feels like hours. He knows, realistically, that it’s probably been about ten minutes when she speaks again.

“It’s my family,” she lets out, all in one breath, and doesn’t continue.

His laugh this time is devoid of humor. “Yeah? I know something about shitty families.” His mouth twists bitterly. “And absent ones.”

A longer stretch of silence passes after that. Her head starts to droop, and he slides his hand to the space between her shoulder blades as she comes to rest against the cool marble. She doesn’t protest it, so he doesn’t either.

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Yeah.”

\---

Two days and a night later, she’s tucked against the corner of the couch again, knees to her chest. There's nothing on TV, and her phone sits in pieces on the coffee table in front of her. There’s a wine glass resting loosely in the cradle of her fingers, full and untouched. 

When she notices him standing there, she smiles. He comes over to his side of the couch, but she beckons him closer. And closer. And closer. Until the weight of the armor is sinking the same cushion she’s on, and she’s rocking into him, toes against his thigh and knees against his arm.

No words are spoken, and they stay like that for the rest of the night.

\---

“You’re all I have too, you know,” she says.

He locks himself away again and doesn’t come out for months.

\---

“You’re selfish! You act like a child and you hide away when things get tough. Well guess what, Tony? Life is hard, and you can’t just lock yourself away from the world and expect no repercussions. Take some damn responsibility!”

\---

Pepper calls it acting out. JARVIS calls it the ‘innate need to self destruct when faced with proof that he’s worthy of love’. 

Tony calls it being a commitment-phobe. 

They’re not the only ones who can be fucking psychiatrists.

\---

When he comes back out of the lab, months later, Pepper gives him the same look she gave him on the doorstep of his manor, that very first day.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, because he’s already tried the rambling excuses that use the word ‘I’ too many times and don’t actually...apologize. They weren’t taken well. He should have known they wouldn’t be.

“JARVIS teach you that?” she retorts, unflinching. And - yeah - he deserves that.

“A bit. The rest I-uh-figured out on my own. I’m sorry,” he repeats, because she has to know it, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but that’s no excuse. I should never have cut you off. Or disappeared. Or...said the things I did. I should never have lashed out. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.” 

She doesn’t even blink. “Okay.” She nods.

“Okay...so you...forgive me?”

Her brow quirks. “No.”

“Oh.”

She sighs. “Tony,” she says, gently - tone warmer, if only by a few degrees - “this kind of thing takes time.”

“Yeah, alright.” He claps his hands, suddenly feeling a lot more confident. “I’ve got the time.” This will be a piece of cake.

“Oh yeah? And how much might that be?”

“All of the time in the world.”

\---

Forgiveness is not, in fact, a piece of cake. No matter how much time one might have.

And for all that the time _does_ help, the thing that ends up helping the most is - well, a person. Pepper. 

She wants to forgive him. She doesn’t reject him. It’s clear - it’s always been clear - that she cares...for him. The quiet moments of trust between them aren’t forgotten. He wants to get there again. So he works for it, because contrary to popular belief, he is more than capable of working for the things he wants ~~loves~~. 

They have more moments. Different moments, but they don’t hold any less weight than the ones before them.

\---

“I trusted him,” Tony tells her one day, sprawled on the floor in the front of the couch she’s sitting on. She looks away from her work when he talks, but doesn’t interrupt. He has to swallow back the tightness in his throat even thinking about it. “Obie-Obadiah. Stane. He was...like a father to me. He _was_ my godfather.” That’s all he says. He can’t get out anything else.

He watches the lazy spin of the fan with a single minded focus and tries not to think about the tears that would be in his eyes right now, if he could control his own body the way he’d used to be able to. 

A weight against his shoulder makes him jump, and he rips his eyes away from the fan in the same way he rips his mind away from the misery. It hurts (sometimes more than he can bear), god it hurts so much. But then he looks over, and he sees that the weight is Pepper’s foot resting on his shoulder, comforting and steady; secure. The tightness is back - in his chest this time - and he reaches out blindly, grasping at her leg, the silken fabric of her skirt. Lets his head fall back and closes his eyes; imagines he’s finally able to rest.

It doesn't hurt so much after that.

\---

“He abandoned me,” she admits one morning, sitting at the kitchen island, legs propped up on the stool next to her and head propped up by her palm, elbow resting on the marble top as she watches him push around some eggs with a spatula. 

He doesn’t ask who. He doesn’t have to.

“My father. He died, but before that, he left. He abandoned me. Twice.” The look in her eyes is far away. 

He lets her think, taking his time plating the eggs and scooping a modest amount of salsa onto the yolks. When he’s finished he turns off the stove, then sets the plate in front of her. Her blue eyes snap to it, following the hand holding it up to his helmet. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” she whispers, taking the fork he holds out across the island. He moves to sit quietly, and she begins on her eggs.

“Did I ever tell you about my time in MIT?”

Her lips twist, just slightly. “College adventures?”

“Teenage adventures,” he shares, and she looks up at him in surprise. He knows it’s not because he was fourteen at the time. That’s common knowledge. He doesn’t talk about his time at MIT, though, and he knows she’s curious.

“Do tell,” she says, and for the first time in days he sees her smile start to return.

So he does.

\---

“It was without anesthetic. The surgery.” 

“The one on the news?”

“Yeah, the one that gave me the - reactor. The arc reactor.”

“You were awake.”

“I felt everything. It was...it hurt. It still hurt, after. My lung capacity was reduced by - a lot, and the device went...deep, in my chest. It never stopped hurting.”

“You should never have had to go through that.”

“Maybe.”

\---

She asks about the armor. 

“I can’t believe it took you this long to ask,” he laughs. It doesn't sound very happy.

“I didn’t think you would answer me, before.”

Which means she thinks he’s ready to answer her now, but he’s not. He’s really not. And he doesn’t want to face this right now. Doesn’t want to talk about it; think about it. He wants to flee. He wants to lock himself away until this all blows over. He wants-

He can’t.

He says, instead: “I don’t want to talk about it.” _Please_ , he wants to say, but he’s Tony Stark, and Tony Stark begs for nothing. _Stark men are made of iron,_ he tells himself. _Stark men are made of iron. Stark men are made of iron. Stark men-_

“That’s okay, Tony.” She sounds - not upset - but like she thinks he doesn’t trust her. Doesn’t care. He wants to tell her he does. God, more than anything. But he can’t tell her that, either. 

So he tells her something he can.

“My old man had a phrase,” he says, and for once the words ‘my old man’ don’t sound so resentful, “Stark men are made of iron.” Because they are. It’s only a fact. A hard truth. But- “I hated it. I still hate it. I-don’t want to be made of iron. I want to feel things.” He wants to care. And cry. And _feel_ -

Pepper makes it look so easy.

“Oh, Tony,” she sighs, and the words aren’t spoken, but he can hear them in the air.

_Your father was wrong._

He’s not so sure he believes them.

\---

“I haven’t had many good employers. I haven’t met many good people. Aldritch Killian-”

“-was an asshole.”

“A rich one, Tony, and I worked for him.”

“He didn’t treat you right. None of them did. They didn’t - don’t - deserve you.”

“No, they don’t.”

“Did they-he...hurt you?”

“No, but he tried.”

“...I won’t.”

“I know, Tony.”

“If you ever feel like I’m treating you that way, just-”

“You won’t. Tony, you wouldn’t.”

“I could.”

“You’re not a monster, Tony.”

“And you’re not the CEO of SI.”

“I could be.”

“Me too.”

\---

She rests her hand on his, one morning over breakfast. He links arms with her at 2am on a weekday, spinning to blaring music. Her fingers brush the helmet as he kneels by the couch where she sits, and that very same day, six hours later, he presses his hand to her chest and swears he can feel her heartbeat.

At dawn, on a sunday, they sit across from each other and work, the silence between them feels charged and soft, all at once, and when he looks up and sees her looking back at him, he realizes he’s in love.

\---

A year after Pepper moves into his mansion, the stock points for SI are off the charts. Never has the company been so successful. The blow from ceasing weapons manufacturing is lessened almost to the point of irrelevance. Tony launches them into green energy with a single-minded focus he’s never given the company before (he’s pretty sure his board members have never been so shocked).

Suddenly, before he’s even realized it, the death trap his father left him (that Obadiah corrupted), becomes a beacon of hope. He could change the world with this, he realizes. He could _help people_. He has the power. He has the money. And now - Obadiah is gone. His father is gone. His mother is gone. The weapons? Gone. He has no ties. He can do...whatever he wants to. He can change the world.

And he doesn’t know how, yet. But he’ll find a way, he always does.


	5. Time Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dangerous pastime occurs.

He has a lot of time to think, these days. Even with the revival of the company and his renewed involvement in its welfare, he has the time. He doesn’t sleep anymore. He doesn’t eat. He barely leaves the house. So when he isn’t talking to Pepper and board members and business owners, he’s thinking.

It’s a lot of self reflection for somebody like Tony Stark. He can admit that. It’s easy to look back now and realize that he never thought much about himself; how he lived, who he hurt, what he did with his life, where his future was headed. He’d been so blind. Easy to lead and eager to follow. Until everything changed. Until he’d had his eyes opened.

And then it was too late.

“The great Tony Stark,” Yinsen had said to him, resolute and stalwart and every bit the man Tony wishes he was.

Most days, Tony doesn’t feel so great.

Most days, he thinks of his mother. 

He thinks of the way she used to cradle his cheek in her palm and call him _bambino_ in that sweet, gentle tone of hers. How she would let him sit on her lap and whisper secrets in her ear, the lilting cadence of a language only they shared, away from all of the pain and hatred and vicious, cutting words. Away from open palms on tables and soldering irons on skin and the relentless, endless chant to _find him, be better than him, make weapons, obey._

Most days, when he thinks about his mother, he thinks about her summertime smiles and the cradle of her arms that sheltered him from the storm. He thinks about how he realized too late - much too late - that the warmth always came with the cold. How for every kind, singular moment between them, there were ten more moments of open rooms and empty hallways and dull eyes; of hollow, aching loneliness. Of business trips and late night drinks and vacations across the world and charities and galas and _not now, tesoro. Un'altra volta, lo prometto_.

He thinks of her smile. Then he thinks of her eyes. With one always comes the other, no matter how hard he tries to only remember the good things.

And then he thinks of Edwin Jarvis. He thinks of Ana Jarvis. Their steady, unfailing dedication to him. Always helping him. Always there for him. Always by his side. 

Until they weren’t.

He thinks of a lot of things.

Yet still, he has the time to think of more.

Pepper occupies a space in his life that not even Jarvis had filled - that his mother hadn’t ever even caught a glimpse of. He sees her one moment, thinks _I trust that woman with my life;_ thinks, _that woman is amazing._ Then, in the very next, he thinks _I love her more than anything._

But he doesn’t realize until it’s too late.

Of course he doesn’t.

He’s Tony Stark, after all.

\---

Pepper thinks it’s sudden. He knows she does. She looks at him when he says it, on unsteady legs and with a shaking voice, and he sees her thoughts clear as day, in those eyes once guarded. She thinks this is spur of the moment. That he’s acting recklessly as he’s done so many times before.

And maybe this _is_ him lashing out. Maybe this is him withdrawing and hiding; pushing away those he cares about. Maybe this is him being a commitment phobe. Maybe this is him being reckless playboy billionare Tony Stark, irredeemable.

But it isn’t sudden. He thinks about it for a long time, before he tells her. Month twenty of her stay becomes rife with tension as he waits to break the news. 

She thinks it’s _because_ of the tension, he knows. She thinks something else has triggered this change. She thinks it’s instant - lightning quick - a rapid strike against this thing growing swiftly and out of control between them.

He doesn’t try to dissuade her from the notion.

She still takes the offer.

She still leaves.

He sets her free.

\---

Pepper becomes CEO.

And she can’t stay anymore.

\---

“I’ll still be head of R&D,” he tells her, because the look on her face says _abandoned_ , and he never _ever_ wants her to think that. 

“But you’ll be gone.” Despite everything her voice doesn’t sound hollow or even shocked. She’s steady, just...doubtful. He wants to set her at ease.

“I’ll be here.” It’s as much of a confession as he’s ever given - infinitely more significant - but it’s hard to miss the underlying meaning only he can understand. Which is that he’s _stuck here_ . He can’t leave. “I still have majority shares of the company,” he assures her, “I still _own_ the company, and I won’t back out entirely. I’m just...moving to R&D. More inventions, less pretensions. That’s for you now.” He jabs a finger at her, almost accusingly, and receives a small smile for his efforts. 

She looks relieved at the humor, shoulders relaxing just a fraction. “So you’ll be good here...by yourself?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m always good. The best. The best of the best, in fact. They call me the Da Vinci of Our Time, you know.”

She snorts indelicately at that. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I know! I don’t paint.”

“You do a mean watercolor,” she allows, brow raised imperiously.

“How very gracious, Your Highness.”

“I try.”

“Seriously though. You good? Cause I don’t want reports of a breakdown over the city when you’re flying in. I don’t want-”

“I’ll be _fine_ , Tony.”

“I’m just saying. This is tough. This is - maybe you shouldn’t go. You know what? Maybe-”

“Tony,” she warns, and he stops. “Tony. I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine...you’ll be fine?”

“Yeah. Fine. Good. Great.”

“Okay.” She nods once, sharply. “Then I’m going to go now.”

“I know, it’s - goodbye.”

“We’ll still speak, Tony, and I’ll visit! I will. We’re going to have to coordinate soon, anyway.”

“Yeah, for the...project. Yeah, I know.”

“So I’ll talk to you soon. I’ll see you soon. Don’t worry, things will work out.” Then it happens - so quickly he almost misses it - she leans forward, up onto her toes, and presses a kiss to the side of the helmet, light as a feather. She’s dropping back down before he can do anything, saying, “thank you, Tony, for everything.”

And that’s their goodbye.

\---

Tony thinks a lot, in the ensuing silence. The house feels empty again, but the warmth hasn’t faded. There’s an icy touch to it now, though. A ring of frost around a ball of sun. Nostalgia.

When the silence gets too much, he thinks about Yinsen.

Yinsen had a family. Tony wonders sometimes if Yinsen was a good father; a good husband. He wonders if Yinsen was happy. Occasionally, on the worst days, he wonders if Yinsen is happy now. If Yinsen’s belief in the afterlife was enough to make it true.

He doubts it. 

He’s experienced enough faith to know that it doesn’t fix the failings of the world, or the failings in people. All it does is get you caught in the crossfire. 

He’s experienced that crossfire more times than he could possibly count on two hands.

 ~~He wishes sometimes that it had killed him when it had the chance~~.

\---

“So you’re settling in alright? How’s the office? Too airy? Not airy enough? It should be a corner office. Lots of windows. Big room, tons of space. You like that, right? The space, I mean. You can do a lot with it, you know. Maybe add some plants, some - some books? Bookshelves? You - how’s the, uh, apartment. The-”

“Tony!” Pepper laughs, a loud, happy sound that he’d rarely heard within the confines of his own home. His heart clenches painfully. “Stop, please. I’m fine. It’s fine. The offices and apartment are both very nice, but you know I don’t need the special treatment.”

He scoffs reproachfully. “Pepper, you’re CEO of SI. You’re due special treatment.”

She shakes her head fondly, and says, “Tony, it’s amazing, really. I love it, but no more gifts, alright? My wage as CEO is more than enough, trust me.”

He cringes exaggeratedly and sucks in a breath through his teeth. “That’s going to be a problem. Some things may have already been ordered-”

“Tony!”

“It’s just some furniture, okay? And - some other things…” he ducks away in the face of her unimpressed look, “nothing important, I promise! Just decorations! Some books...a couple of computers. A car.”

“A car.”

“It wasn’t my idea!”

He didn’t think it was possible for her glare to get any worse, but here they are. “So it was JARVIS’s.”

“Um, that’s not what I said.” An online video call and a piece of code with no eyes, yet for some reason he can feel the heat of both JARVIS and Pepper’s accusation right now.

“Tony,” she enunciates it slowly, as if he’d forget his own name (which, in her defence, he has before), “you’re the only other person in the house aside from JARVIS. Are you saying JARVIS bought me a car after I asked him not to?”

“That’s - wh- is this an interrogation? Because I want it on record that you only asked me not to after I did!” There’s an agonizing few moments of silence after that, and he can _see_ Pepper holding back her smirk. “Okay, I think we’re done here.”

“It was a nice thought,” she soothes, the sincerity somewhat lessened by her amusement, “thank you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s - whatever,” he dismisses easily. He’s just glad she accepted the gift. He considers buying her groceries too, for a second, before instantly dismissing the thought. Pepper would _definitely_ not like that. And she can take care of herself. He knows this. Hell, half the time it was her taking care of him anyway, or at least trying to.

“It must have cost a lot of money. I think it deserves some thanks,” she pushes.

He shifts uncomfortably at her insistence. “Not too much.”

“But enough. Honestly, Tony, just accept the thanks. I appreciate what you did for me, but you put a lot of resources into it. Let me thank you.”

If he doesn’t give in now she’s just going to keep pushing it. Maybe not now, but later. It’s going to become an issue, he can already feel it. So he coughs, turns his gaze away, says, “yeah, okay,” and hopes she leaves it at that.

She’s clearly skeptical, but it seems to be enough for now, because she quickly moves onto other things. 

Projects are discussed. Then reviews and recent changes and new employees. When he sees the roster he can’t help but wince. He’d once known every single employee under him, whether in person or through their files. It’s been one of the only things his memory has consistently, for years, never failed him on. 

Now, he doesn’t know these people. He isn’t even technically their boss anymore, except for those in R&D. 

He feels...isolated, for the first time since this started. With a nauseating clarity, he realizes that the gap between him and the world - him and his people - is so much wider and so much deeper than he’d realized. 

He wonders if he’ll ever recover.

~~He’s still unsure if he wants to.~~

\---

At least he has Pepper, he thinks on the best of days.

On the worst of days, he knows that she’s gone.

Home is an empty house for the broken hearted. It’s silent in the rooms. In the spaces between rooms, even JARVIS doesn’t speak anymore.

He works to build his future out of scrap metal and broken parts and technology the likes of which most don’t even know exists. He knows he made the right call, making Pepper CEO. Because R&D has never thrived so much. SI has never before developed such groundbreaking technology at this speed. But it doesn’t feel like a victory.

Most days ~~(~~ ~~all days)~~ it feels like a curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have currently put this fic on hiatus! Due to a combination of recent events (lockdown, corona, the protests, etc...) as well as my current hyperfixation/interest with fandoms other than marvel, I'm taking a break from this AU. Please note that when I *do* get back, I'll be starting the next arc under a new fic in the series! This fic is considered completed now, and Rhodey (+ hints of Natasha XD) will be next.


End file.
